Hello,

This has prob been talked about before, I've done a quick search but can't find owt.

Can ayone recommend a good oil for the Rover V8, I know these can suffer from low oil pressure when hot and at tickover.

Don't want to have one eye on the oil pressure as that would mean both eyes are off the road, other eye is looking at fuel gauge!!

Cheers

Ddepends a lot on age and mileage of engine. An old one, 1970s and 80s will need a thicker oil and do not like the modern stuff. 1990s are quite happy on the newer thinner oils with high tech properties. If you have a "new" rebuilt engine treat as a new car engine possibly use running in oil.

These engines do have a habit of leaking oil, the valley gasket is a prime candidate particularly the rubber seals at the end also the front cover has some long bolts that go through the cover to the block and into the oil ways, these need a special loctite to seal them up. This habit is aggravated on older engines by using thinner oil.

Best of luck!

Caber
( with very leaky Range Rover V8!)

Strangely on the 4 pot Rover 820 T16 engine they leak less oil from the head gasket area with thinner grade oils.

quote:

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Originally posted by britishtrident
Strangely on the 4 pot Rover 820 T16 engine they leak less oil from the head gasket area with thinner grade oils.

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I use straight 20/50 in mine. It doesnt like 10/40 grade.
I have a fully recon'd engine, ground crank, rebore new pistons, ALL new bearings Cam, and followers, new oil pump etc etc. 50psi when cold, and 15-20 psi on tickover when hot.

I used duckhams to run in, and am now using some 20/50 from my local motor factors, which seems to have better characteristics over the Duckhams.

Rover V8's prefer a good volume of oil flow rather than lots of pressure.
Again, pressure drops when hot.
I am also thinking of some bonnet vents and exhaust wrap, as the temperature rises when in slow traffic in town. and is fine on the open road. Mind you its been damn HOT lately!

using 20/50 i think ( the red one ) from halfrauds mine seems to like it.

I have found that the later composite vally gasget work better than the tin ones.

Re the cooling still wotking on that exhaust wrap helps hugely but i need more vents out

regards

agriv8

I use Valvoline Racing 20/50 in mine. It was recommended by my engine builder and up to now it's been great. I have an occasional problem with a noisy lifter which is probably nothing to do with the oil itself.

As already stated it's better not to use oils with a 40 grade when hot. I may try Millers CSS next time - they do a 10/60.

Kurt

I,ve run these for years, it depends on the front cover.

If you have the old oil pump (distributor driven unless a really late 3.9) you want something like castrol GTX or its equivilent. Because these sludge up quickly I used a quality diesel oil, millers semi sync from memory.

Later engines with a much better oil pump are good on later synthetic oils, Landrover recommend 10/40 sync in P38 4.0's and 4.6's.


Regards Mark

these are 50s technology. don't waste money on fancy/£££ synthetics etc: plain old 20/50 but replace more frequently, 3k to 5 k. cheaper and run best on those.

cheers for advice